Mailing List

Dear All,

I would like to setup a mailing list for my company.
I have a database containing email address of my clients along with other
details.
How can I send them mails ?
If i write a script containing the mail function and loop the address, I
think that might generate a script timeout error. I feel increasing the
script timeout is not a good solution. I would like to know how you manage
such situations. I feel this is a common problem but i didnt find any
solution on the net. Do I need to use any sw or are there any already
available scripts.

Thanks a Lot !!
Long Live PHP !!

Thanks & Regards,
___________________________
PHPLover
"Göd döësn't pläy dícë."
- Älbërt Ëínstëín

Allowing scripts to run without some kind of time limit may not be prudent,
but settling for the timelimit imposed on online web pages is not reasonable
either. I would recommend you reset the time limit to something reasonable
to perform your email tasks on the computer you have available.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/functio...time-limit.php

As long as you don't have a "run away" program, I can't think of any reason
not to allow it to have the time it needs to get the job done.

Warren Vail
warren@vailtech.net


-----Original Message-----
From: PHPLover [mailto:phplover@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 10:18 PM
To: php-general@lists.php.net
Subject: [php] Mailing List


Dear All,

I would like to setup a mailing list for my company.
I have a database containing email address of my clients along with other
details.
How can I send them mails ?
If i write a script containing the mail function and loop the address, I
think that might generate a script timeout error. I feel increasing the
script timeout is not a good solution. I would like to know how you manage
such situations. I feel this is a common problem but i didnt find any
solution on the net. Do I need to use any sw or are there any already
available scripts.

Thanks a Lot !!
Long Live PHP !!

Thanks & Regards,
___________________________
PHPLover
"Göd döësn't pläy dícë."
- Älbërt Ëínstëín

> I would like to setup a mailing list for my company.
> I have a database containing email address of my clients along with other
> details.
> How can I send them mails ?
> If i write a script containing the mail function and loop the address, I
> think that might generate a script timeout error. I feel increasing the
> script timeout is not a good solution. I would like to know how you manage
> such situations. I feel this is a common problem but i didnt find any
> solution on the net. Do I need to use any sw or are there any already
> available scripts.

I built a queuing system to email to a large list. The general approach is
to add a database table that stores the email message and tracks progress
through the list. A PHP script called by a crontab checks the database to
see if a mailing is in progress. If so, it selects a certain number of
addresses and sends the message. By controlling the number of addresses
selected and how often the crontab calls the script, the email rate is
controlled. And using a crontab makes it a background process. The email
message is created and list progress monitored through a content management
system.

--
Lowell Allen

PHPLover --

...and then PHPLover said...
%
% Dear All,
%
% I would like to setup a mailing list for my company.

Then set up a mailing list.


% I have a database containing email address of my clients along with other
% details.

That's good.


% How can I send them mails ?

I would highly recommend ezmlm for mailing list software. It does a
fantastic job.

Now if you actually mean to send customized letters you'll have to inject
each one singly, which really gets time-consuming.

In either case, I would avoid having php do your actual mailing; use the
web interface for selecting recipients, creating your message body, and
whatnot, but then hand off the actual mailing work to a separate process
(and don't expect to wait until it finishes).


% If i write a script containing the mail function and loop the address, I
% think that might generate a script timeout error. I feel increasing the
% script timeout is not a good solution. I would like to know how you manage

We run a fan / marketing site for various clients (bands, video game
companies, whatnot) which offer content for those interested, a vanity
email address, and regular newsletters offsite to the "base" addresses.
Through moderate but not insane tuning I've managed to get our mail
processing down to about 120ms per message; that gives me in excess of
25k messages queued per hour, which is near our target of 60k emails
within two hours (and of course some of those take longer because of
timeouts and retries and such). Even so, there's obviously no way that a
web browser would wait around for that kind of delay.

We follow a model similar to that of another poster; our subscribers are
in a database along with the massmail info and a cron job checks for
queued jobs and processes them. It would be a lot easier if we could
send out a general letter, but fans like it when you address them by name
and so on :-/


% such situations. I feel this is a common problem but i didnt find any
% solution on the net. Do I need to use any sw or are there any already
% available scripts.

I agree that it's a common problem. The reason you didn't find your
answers was because you looked for the wrong ones :-)


%
% Thanks a Lot !!
% Long Live PHP !!
%
% Thanks & Regards,
% ___________________________
% PHPLover
% "Göd döësn't pläy dícë."
% - Älbërt Ëínstëín

Is there something wrong with your vowels?


HTH & HAND

:-D
--
David T-G * There is too much animal courage in
(play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage.
(work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health"
http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!


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